The Things We Don't Leave Behind

It has been just slightly over three weeks since I left India, and I am still not sure that it actually happened.

I look at the pictures, I watch my videos, I see the sundry items in my apartment that I brought back for myself, my daughter, and for others. They are physical, tangible objects, so how could it not be real? Right?

But, what really of India is left for me?

What of anything of my life, prior to writing this sentence is left? One could say the obvious, that is, memories, but that doesn’t seem to cut it for me any longer. Memories are transparent, fleeting, and can easily be manipulated if I put even a modicum of effort into deluding myself that one thing was better or worse than it actually was. Our most convincing lies are usually to ourselves.

I made my favorite dish from India, or at least my comfort food dish, that being Chili Parotha (there are about 50 ways to spell this word...), which is a doughy pancake, made with a swirl of dough, looking much like a cinnamon roll, at least the Tamil version, as each region does it differently. Then, the parotha is torn up into little pieces and stewed with a tomato-based chili sauce.

I found a store here in Antwerp that is run by Tamil Nadu people, so I am able to get all of the “right” ingredients for my dish. But, as anyone knows, it just ain’t the same when you do it at home as compared to in situ. Don’t get me wrong, my vindaloo-level chili sauce was spot on for comfort and the parothas, despite being deep-frozen, were surpisingly good, and, yet...

Yet, what? Why was it not as good? I bought the same ingredients as I would have if I had been in Madurai, cooked it the same way, and my taste buds are the same, but what is missing?

The full-on assault of the other senses in the case of India, at least. The power of the environment is an impressive force upon our consciousness and it does seem to impede us from enjoying the moment at times when that nagging voice says, “yeah, but...” The “yeah, but...” is a deadly phase, not lethal in that sense, but can kill a perfectly good moment or event when the naysayers begin to chant that mantra.

Had I never been to India, there would have been absolutely nothing wrong with my dinner. On the contrary, I may have thought it was one of the best things that I made. Instead, my mind wandered to the various places that I had my beloved Chili Parotha: at Eliot’s Beach in Chennai after visiting the Theosophical Society Grounds ; in a small roadside restaurant in the middle of nowhere-ville, Tamil Nadu, with the Bishop Sargent crew after a 14-hour day of shooting; with my good friend Tess and Handel in Tirunelveli; or, on the rooftop terrace alone at the Park Plaza Hotel, overlooking the Meenakshi Temple complex in Madurai on the last night of my placement.

My life has been forever enriched by the experiences that I had in India, and they come back in moments, as dramatic flashes even, or sometimes as prolonged, patient sonnets of imagination in my solitary thoughts.

My life turned a corner in India.

There are things we leave behind in life.

There are people in my life that I may never see again, for various reasons, from various parts of my various lives. I know that once I turned that corner. In turning that corner, there is much that I leave behind. And, there is much that I have brought back with me, puzzling through which I am recomposing my life, with a view towards which I have edged, on the turning away.